Nothing in its Proper Place

Nothing is the proper place of poetry
the nothing that is and the nothing
that is not, to slightly misquote Wallace
Stevens, now nothing but a book on a shelf.

Things seem round, but close reading
show oblong, egg shaped, ellipsoid,
particularly in the topological poem,
where nothing expands and retracts.

The universe is a closed knot
the poet tries to unknot
to pull his shoe on without
twisting his tongue.

Think pretzel, which is non-trivial,
while the poem is a wild knot,
unable to untie itself,
non-rational, but linked within.

What a mess, and I can’t find
the beginning of the thread,
nor the ending, for that matter,
but incomprehensible I am not.